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It's Any Jewish Woman's Race

In addition to tracking the obvious race in tomorrow’s election, here at the Jewish Women’s Archive, we’ll also be keeping our eyes on two congressional races in which Jewish women are vying for seats in the House of Representatives.

In Pennsylvania, Marina Kats (R), a Jewish immigrant from Ukraine, is hoping to unseat Allyson Schwartz (D), a first-generation American whose family fled Nazi persecution in Austria. In South Florida, Colombian-born Annette Taddeo (D), a business leader who converted to Judaism, is challenging Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R), who is of Cuban Jewish descent. In reading the coverage of these tworaces in the Jewish Daily Forward, I was struck by how the political commitments of these candidates are shaped by (and, at times, seem at odds with) their personal Jewish narratives -- histories of persecution, “rags to riches,” and encounters with terrorism definitely play a role in these candidates’ platforms. Of course, these are not the first Jewish women to make their way into American politics. Check out JWA’s feature on Jewish women in politics to learn more about women of the past and present who have shaken things up in Washington … and don’t forget to shake things up yourselves by VOTING!